[Diane Keaton] And all the time she emanates warmth—miraculously, naturally. It's in her long-legged softness, in her coloring, her flesh tones, her sunny, broad smile. (1977)

[CÉSAR AND ROSALIE] It's a movie not to be taken any more seriously than a tune one hums for a season—a little tedious, faintly absurd, but really quite pleasant. (1973)

The cool silence of the Coop archetype implied depths. There are no depths in Redford that he's willing to reveal; his cool is just modern, existential chic, and it's beginning to look sullen and stubborn rather than heroic. (1972)

In STOLEN KISSES Truffaut seems to start with the assumption that we already love his little Antoine and will find his ineptness and incompetence adorable. But I liked Antoine for his strength, and that is gone. (1969)

When there is no respect on either side, commerce is a dirty word. (1965)

THE IDIOT (1951) Kurosawa made this version of the Dostoevski novel right after RASHOMON, using the same two men—Masayuki Mori and Toshiro Mifune. It's a long, uneven, fascinating film.

Trintignant conveys the mechanisms of thought through tension, the way Bogart did, and he has the grinning, teeth-baring reflexes of Bogart—cynicism and humor erupt in savagery. (1971)

Advertising, TV, commercials, movies are trying to outwit disbelief by including it in the sell. (1965)

Wasn't there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn't want to sing his head off or who screamed that he wouldn't act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa's party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get out on a stage? (1965)

The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others. (1963)

Most of us would probably agree with Cocteau that "the privileges of beauty are enormous," but do they include Sean Young's bad acting in NO WAY OUT? (1987)

If ever there were a movie director who needed to rediscover simplicity, it's Richard Lester—even more than Ken Russell. These directors overvalue their own fertility; they don't bother timing their gags, or building up to them—they just throw everything together. (1975)

CAMELOT (1967) One of Hollywood's colossal financial disasters...The sets and people and costumes seem to be sitting there on the screen, waiting for the unifying magic that never happens.

[Neil Simon] The more serious his plays are, the worse they are. You can convert dissatisfaction, quarrelsomeness, and outright meanness into vaudeville but not into drama. (1975)

The role of the critic is to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn't be, what is not in it that could be. (1963)

[DOUBLE INDEMNITY] With her bold stare, her sneering, over-lipsticked, thick-looking mouth, and her strategically displayed legs, Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson is a living entrapment device. (1982)

Sydney Pollack doesn't have a knack for action pulp. He has directed the spy thriller THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR in his earnest, inimitably expensive style, trying to elevate the material, and has succeeded only in taking the charge out of it. (1975)

CARRIE is a terrifyingly lyrical thriller. The director, Brian De Palma, has mastered a teasing style—a perverse mixture of comedy and horror and tension, like that of Hitchcock or Polanski, but with a lulling seriousness. (1976)

[MEAN STREETS] Scorsese has an operatic visual style...He has used a mixture of records to more duplicit effect than anyone since Kenneth Anger in SCORPIO RISING. (1973)

LA TERRA TREMA (1947) Luchino Visconti's neo-realist tragedy, set among the exploited Sicilian fishermen, is long and full of political clichés, and yet in its solemnity and beauty it achieves a true epic vision. The film is lyrical yet austere and it's beautifully proportioned.